US Senate Questions CIA’s Gina Haspel on Use of Torture

Gina Haspel refused to say Wednesday during her confirmation hearing to be CIA director if she oversaw the waterboarding of terrorism suspect Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri in 2002.

Haspel reportedly became chief of base at a CIA black site in Thailand in October of that year. Nashiri arrived in November and was waterboarded at least three times before being transferred in December to a different facility, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who was influential in drafting an intelligence committee report partially released in 2014, asked Haspel to give a “yes or no” answer to whether she oversaw the waterboarding of Nashiri.

Haspel declined to give a direct answer, but appeared to suggest that non-public details would absolve her of involvement.